Whatever Happened to Florean Fortescue?
by Snape's Nightie
Summary: Why is the Dark Lord feeling so emotional? And why on earth have the Death Eaters kidnapped the ice cream man? Bellatrix and Severus know. Silly! No slash.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This will be a silly one with lots of short chapters. The other day I started to wonder why the Death Eaters had kidnapped the ice-cream man, and this happened. 

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. But I sometimes play with them when no one's looking.

"How long has he been like this?" snapped Snape, quietly closing the door behind himself, rearranging his leather bag of 'special' potions until everything was back in pristine order once more. The heavy-lidded woman, dark of hair and even darker of soul, crossed her arms over her chest and huffed at him.

"Ages. It happens for about a day once a month, every month. He's…" she lowered her voice and manoeuvred them both away from the room. "He gets irritable. I mean, more irritable than usual. And wistful. Sometimes he even looks a bit, well, teary."

Snape sneered. He was not feeling particularly scathing, but after so many years of hating everything, his face just fell naturally into that expression. He was actually thinking extremely hard.

"Bellatrix," he began softly, rightly considering that he should choose his words very carefully. "This is not an area with which I enjoy a great deal of familiarity, but the symptoms which you describe are somewhat reminiscent of one particular disorder." He held his breath. Bellatrix's natural disposition wavered between painfully playful and openly homicidal, making dangerous suggestions about her master's was not something she would take lightly. Likewise any reference to menstruation which could be taken as a slight on the rationality of womankind. Mentioning both in the same sentence was Longbottom-stupid. For the moment, however, he appeared to be safe, as she was merely gaping at him with a furrowed brow.

"What are you trying to say?" she demanded, but made no apparent move towards her wand.

"You are female, are you not, Mrs Lestrange?" he smirked. They glared for a few minutes. Severus won. She glanced away, sinking into one of the kitchen chairs.

"Yes, but _he_ isn't," she muttered, almost to herself. Snape could not quite repress the shudder which manifested at her tone of utter conviction. Ugh. How could she? In fact, how could he? He made a mental note to be sick later on, in the safety of his own dungeon. "It's definitely not the phases of the moon, I checked," she continued.

"Could it be something to do with Wormtail?" suggested Severus, sitting down opposite her with his features schooled into indifference. He was almost certain she was convinced of his loyalty after overseeing the Unbreakable Vow, but he was no fool. Having a good few feet of stout oak table between oneself and Bellatrix was never a bad thing. "He was the one who gave his flesh for the resurrection spell." _The sycophantic Griffindor weasel that he is,_ he added to himself.

"Could be," she snarled. "The rodent is the most pathetic of us all. His flesh may contain all sorts of unpleasantness."  
"Bubonic plague, for example," Severus agreed. He rubbed his long, stained hands together. This was a perfect opportunity to go and torment his house guest.

…….


	2. Chapter 2

Peter Pettigrew squeaked. In his current predicament, there was precious little else he could do. He was spread-eagled in his worn-out pants on the rickety old bed at Spinner's End, an industrial strength binding spell on his wrists and ankles. Bellatrix had quickly tired of his whining and shoved a knobbly old pair of socks into his mouth.

"I hope those are clean," sneered Snape, drawing yet another vial of blood from the pinioned animagus.

"I didn't have you down as a solicitous host," smirked Bellatrix, flipping to the correct page in the huge medicinal potions book. "Here we go. Testing for syphilis. Instant results, lovely!"

"Mmph!" went Wormtail. They ignored him.

"Is it likely that anyone would willingly transmit a disease to him sexually?" Snape sounded dubious, thinking of all those lovely ingredients which were being wasted on biological tests for the rat.

"He might have used a professional," she leaned over him, menacingly. Bellatrix did most things menacingly. Severus shuddered. He really disliked the thought of his fellow Death Eaters _at it_. They were such an unpleasant collection of freaks. Bellatrix continued in that irritating singsong voice which she used to torment her inferiors. "I hope you haven't given the Dark Lord anything embarrassing, Peter. He will be most upset." Wormtail closed his eyes. He hoped so too.

Snape added the blood to a simple blend of mercuric oxide and powdered knarl spines, heated it to ninety one point three three degrees Flamelheit and sat back to watch.

"Mauve," he observed, ten seconds later. Bellatrix flipped over the page and sighed.

"Negative. Good for you, Wormy. OK, Snape, next one – Tantric Ungelpox, hereditary or acquired. Do we have any toadflax suspension?"

Snape performed a quick sterilising charm on his hand before rubbing his eyes. This was going to take ages.

…….

"Lemon drop, Severusss?"

Snape experienced a rare moment of panic. Sleep-deprivation was obviously driving him insane. He and Lestrange had spent all night testing Wormtail for every possible disease which he could have given to the Voldemort by using his arm for the resurrection potion. He had always thought he could function perfectly well without sleep, until now. Now, he was clearly going insane. The Dark Lord did not _do_ sweets. The Light One did little else. Severus realised that something had gone badly wrong somewhere in the fabric of the universe. Which meant that he was probably going to die.

"Master?" he mumbled, eyes fixed on the floor.

"It was a joke, Severuss," came the hissing reply.

"Ahahaha!" he chuckled loudly, more out of relief than amusement. "Very good, My Lord."

"You see how well I know my enemy?"

"You are truly all-powerful, Master," he grovelled. "And so magnanimous to share a pleasantry with one so unworthy."

"Oh knock it off, Severusss," he sounded bored now, and popped a boiled sweet into his mouth with a familiar little clunk. "And get up off the floor. You're giving me a crick in my neck."

Snape did so, wondering what all this could mean. He was still convinced that death was imminent, but then, since becoming a spy, the feeling had skulked in the back of his mind most of the time.

"Unlike Dumbledore, I will not take the trouble to baffle you with flowery speech," began Voldemort, sucking on his lemon drop. Snape inched backwards carefully. The smell of Albus' breath coming out of Voldemort's mouth was messing with his head. "Malfoy has behaved like an imbecile. His impetuosity has landed him in prison, which means you are currently the only one of my servants to possess a brain."

"My Lord is most generous," Snape didn't like where this was heading. "However, Bellatrix…"

"Bella shows the right spirit, certainly, but she is undeniably insane." Severus conceded the point immediately with a firm nod. The Dark Lord continued. "I require your intellect this evening, Severusss. I am concerned about the state of my wand. You were not present on the evening when I regained my powers, but no doubt you have heard what occurred. I was unable to vanquish a teenage boy."

"Yes, My Lord, your wand and Potter's met with an unusual effect, I believe," he remembered Lucius' vivid explanation of Lily Evans and James Potter manifesting inside an impenetrable sphere of light.

"I was powerless!" he yelled, flecks of lemony spit flying from his mouth. "Find out what the hell happened and fix it! This must never happen again!"

Severus had never really thought much about wands. Foolish wand-waving was very much not his thing – the whole idea of a magical core combining with the natural essence of the soul of a tree in order to focus the innate magical traces of a witch or wizard tended to make his head spin if he analysed it for too long. He didn't think he could stand much library research on the subject, certainly not after all that time poring over Wormtail's bodily fluids. He would just have to consult an expert.

Ten minutes later, he strode into the Leaky Cauldron, peering at the gossiping clientele until he spotted them. Two hulking great lumps were huddled in the corner underneath the stairs, miserably staring into enormous flagons of ale.

"Crabbe! Goyle! Come with me!" he commanded. Recognising him, they leaped up immediately, apparently pleased to have someone to tell them what to do in Malfoy's absence. They followed him like ungainly guard dogs out the back of the pub and through to Diagon Alley before Goyle bothered to ask what was going on.

"A mission," he replied curtly. They both made excited noises.

"Where to?" asked Crabbe, ponderously.

"Are we going to fetch Malfoy?" ventured Goyle, in a startling bit of independent thought. Snape smirked. _Not on your life, _he though to himself.

"No, Garth. We're going to fetch Ollivander."

…….

A/N: What do you think? Worth continuing? Not sure where I'm headed with this, but there were lots of intriguing snippets in HBP which have sparked certain trains of thought...

Thanks Mon, Oya and Artemisa27 for being so quick off the mark with the reviews! You are all made of stars! x


	3. Chapter 3

"Don't do anything stupid," warned a deep voice. Mr. Ollivander blinked at the wand being brandished half an inch from the tip of his nose and studied it for a moment. His face showed the merest trace of amusement amongst the well-carved network of wrinkles.

"Ten and a half inches, oak and giant blood," he observed dryly. "I rather doubt that _I_ will be the one to act foolishly, Douglas Sophocles Crabbe." The man holding the wand jerked backwards in alarm, collided with the overloaded bedside table and collapsed, swearing, onto the floor where Ollivander's false teeth had exploded out of their glass beaker and were waiting to sink into his ample backside. Crabbe rocketed upwards with an agility which belied his bulk, bellowing even louder as he collided with the wardrobe, a chair, and finally, the little upholstered perch where Ollivander's pet spider-monkey, Kevin, had been fast asleep. Kevin was not noted for his sense of humour. Whereas the wand-maker had barely raised an eyebrow at being woken in the dead of night by three masked Death Eaters, Kevin seemed to take great exception to the visitors, and enthusiastically set about trying to rip Crabbe's ears off while screaming at the top of his little voice.

On the other side of the bed, another brawny Death Eater was having difficulty trying to conceal his wand whilst keeping his white mask and hood from slipping. A third figure, this one slimmer and more graceful than his colleagues, sighed deeply from his position in the doorway. What did Lucius see in those two? Surely they were even too incompetent to laugh at his jokes? He stunned the shrieking monkey and placed it carefully on the end of the bed.

"Are you quite finished?" he demanded, voice silky smooth but dripping with a kind of disturbingly gentle menace. Goyle was helping a grumbling Crabbe to his feet. The teeth were hopping in crazy circles around them, apparently looking for their next meal now that they had tasted blood. He rolled his eyes behind the mask and turned to the elderly wizard sitting up in the bed, placing his own wand in plain view. "Mr. Ollivander. There is no need for this evening to become more unpleasant than necessary. If you would accompany us without fuss there will be no need to cause you any distress."

The rheumy old eyes ignored the wizard standing before him, preferring to study the wand. He recognised it perfectly well in the dim firelight. A wand of extremes. A wand with many strong qualities, both for the bad and the good. He decided he was either perfectly safe, or in mortal peril.

He pulled on his dressing gown, inserted his false teeth and gently tucked the immobile Kevin into a pocket.

"Shall we go now, Severus, or do your apes want to do another routine?"

Snape sighed. This sort of thing never happened to Malfoy.

…….

It had been a trying day. Severus was dying to get home to a long bath with a long book. Lavender oil would be most relaxing, he thought, and perhaps a drop of essence of violets to help him sleep. To Snape, a bath was like a large cauldron, requiring meticulous preparation of just the right ingredients to achieve the required state of mind. He liked to spend hours there, reading, inhaling his herbal concoctions, perhaps taking a glass of something illegal or the ultimate indulgence – chocolate treats from Honeyduke's. There was so much fun to be had, he often forgot the more mundane aspects of bathing, such as washing one's hair.

He was just calculating the temperature which would be required to produce the precise consistency of vibrating massage bubbles when a hand on his arm made him whirl round, immediately springing forward to curse his assailant.

Bellatrix frowned at the wand sticking up her left nostril, but said nothing. Snape muttered and removed it with rather ill-grace.

"What?" he demanded, sounding irritable, even by his standards.

"A little jumpy tonight, Sevvie?" she batted her eyelids at him.

"Sleep deprivation," he muttered, stalking towards the door. "And over-exposure to the donut brothers."

"The Dark Lord is pleased you managed to get Ollivander," she smiled, then grimaced again, looking around to make sure on one could overhear. "Though he keeps eating those muggle sweets. And he won't let me have the monkey to play with. Something's definitely _wrong_ with him. We have to keep going with the tests." Snape sighed heavily. He had rather hoped she would give up after Pettigrew came up negative for every blood-ailment imaginable. His personal theory on Voldemort's odd behaviour was that after all those years of darkness and evility, the freak was finally losing his gobstones and going senile. On the subject of mental wellbeing, Snape made a silent note that it wouldn't hurt to strengthen his occlumency, to be on the safe side. He couldn't have thoughts like that sliding through his barriers. Merlin knew what damage the Potter brat had managed to inflict last year, crashing about inside his head like a herd of hippogriffs. Yet another task on his copious to-do list.

"Tomorrow, Bella," he pleaded wearily.

"OK, if you're going to be a spoilsport," she pouted. "But I think we were looking at the wrong wizard. We need to investigate the other person involved in the resurrection."

Snape's brain whirred through Lucius' description of that fatal evening. How did the incantaion go? _Blood of the enemy...?_ Oh no. Not him.

"Bellatrix! I am plagued by Potter's presence every day for ten months of the year! You CANNOT expect me to seek him out during the summer! I don't even know where he lives!" And I certainly wouldn't tell the Queen of Cruciatus, even if I did, he added privately, trying to tamp down the wicked little voice which was suggesting how much fun that would be. The petulant teenager would probably squeal and twitch charmingly. She patted him gently on the shoulder, the way that Weasley woman did when her husband started getting overexcited by waffle-irons.

"Get some sleep, dear," she smiled condescendingly. "We'll think of something."

…….

A/N: Wow! So many reviews! Thank you so much, it was great to get such a good response for this mixed-up little idea! Glad you enjoyed. Lemon dropsss for everyone x.

The two main quibbles seemed to be:

1) _When do we get to the ice-cream part?_ Soon, I promise, am just setting the scene. I will get there, eventually.

2) _The first chapter was a bit rubbish._ I know. I will re-jig it when I get the chance. Sometimes it's hard to see where you're going until you start the journey. Thanks for sticking with me regardless.


	4. Chapter 4

Bellatrix and Severus continue their investigations...

"Severus, I am most displeased!" Snape's master's voice sounded decidedly sinister this morning. He kept his eyes respectfully lowered. It would not do, he reasoned, to provoke the powerful wizard when he was in such a temper. The older man turned and began pacing the room in agitation, occasionally zapping small objects with his wand as he muttered under his breath, making Snape jump each time something exploded. Not good, not good at all.

"Disgraceful," he heard the portrait of Phineas Nigellus hiss behind him. "Sulking like a first-year then calling yourself a Headmaster?"

"You shut up!" roared Dumbledore, swinging round with his wand raised. Armando Dippet dived behind his armchair in the frame next door. "It's taken me fifty-three years to pluck up the courage to ask Madame Puddifoot to step out with me, then before I can even open my mouth Moody's appearing out of thin air babbling about Woody going missing! It's too much!" He decided against hexing the picture and turned back, folding his arms across his chest petulantly. Snape and Nigellus exchanged a very Slytherin look.

"He is perfectly well, though," Snape ventured, into the silence that followed Dumbledore's outburst.

"What?" he snapped distractedly. "Who is?"

"Ollivander."

"They say he was kidnapped by Death Eaters!" pouted Albus, "I doubt that he's 'perfectly well'."

Snape examined his fingernails while the alleged greatest mind of the past two centuries drew its laboured conclusion. After a moment, during which the only sound was Professor Dippet's portrait asking Nigellus if it was safe to come out, the Headmaster gave a small hum of realisation.

"_You_ kidnapped him?" he asked Snape, his tone of voice halfway between relief and admonishment.

"I asked him to accompany me to the Riddle House," he explained softly. "He is safe and sound in the basement, no chains, no manacles. The Dark Lord is investigating the strange things which occurred when his wand met Potter's."

Dumbledore swore so loudly that Dippet dived for cover again.

"Is there a problem, Albus?" Snape asked, trying not to twitch as the Headmaster fiddled with that bright yellow beard-tie which made him want to set fire to things. Snape had grown a beard once. He had worn it for two proud days until Lucius had pointed out that it made him look like Igor Karkaroff. Not wanting anything to do with the snivelling Bulgarian, he had shaved it off immediately. Not a good look. Dumbledore had a fabulously distinguished beard, in Snape's opinion, but with typical Griffindor dottiness he chose to ruin it with an array of nauseating fripperies which gave any normal person The Fear.

"No," sighed Dumbledore wearily. "Well, obviously, there are several hundred problems connected with this war, but nothing new. I had hoped that Tom would not turn his attention to this particular avenue, that is all."

"Yes another mysterious and oh-so-intriguing other-worldly connection between Golden Boy and Dark Lord, no doubt?" he sneered.

Phineas Nigellus sniggered audibly. Dumbledore glared like a basilisk in half-moon spectacles.

"Thank you, Severus, that will be all," he said coldly.

Snape rose and to leave, knowing better than to push Albus when he was having one of his bad days. He decided to say nothing about the Dark Lord's unusual behaviour for now, but then he recalled something Bellatrix had mentioned the other day after she finished blathering on about Pettigrew and Potter.

"Albus?" he ventured carefully.

"Mm?" an irritated sound – he hadn't even bothered to look up, which annoyed Snape more than everything else put together, for some reason.

"The Dark Lord has been talking about a family heirloom. Something which has been kept in a safe place for a long time. Something precious, I think." He left and closed the door before Dumbledore could ask any questions. He didn't know the answers anyway.

_Investigate it yourself, you old lunatic._

…….

Potter's medical notes were almost as thick as Potter.

Severus had a wealth of experience at breaking into the infirmary. During his own schooldays, he had quickly learned that allowing Madame Pomphrey to treat the results of his fights with the Griffindors or his failed experiments led to awkward questions and trips to Slug's office. Any potions or supplies which he could not create by himself in the dungeon had to be carefully filched while her attention was elsewhere. He had successfully burgled the place whilst blinded, transfigured into an aardvark, shrunk to one-third his natural size and, on one unforgettable occasion, with a five-foot decorative javelin through his thigh.

He snorted at the memory. The Best Days of His Life? Unfortunately, they probably had been. Certainly, there had been no significant improvements, unless you count the deaths of James Potter and Sirius Black. He stopped brooding and plunged into Potter Junior's freshly-stolen file.

Quidditch injuries. An unpleasant reaction to the Dark Lord's spirit passing through him in his first year. Pain in his scar. More quidditch injuries. Measles, aged 5. Chicken Pox, mumps, anaemia…whooping cough? Merlin, even the most neglected kids of the the muggle factory workers in Spinner's End had been vaccinated against whooping cough, and that was decades ago! He racked his brains for a reason why Potter's relatives had allowed him to be so ill. The National Health Service was still free to muggles, just like the National Healing Service was free to wizards, so it couldn't have been financial reasons.

The floo flared and Bellatrix's voice, though muffled, still managed to screech through the wards. He sighed and let her come in.

"It's like trying to get into Gringott's!" she snapped, exaggeratedly brushing dirt off her robes. "Why are you so paranoid? Merlin, Snape, this place is a dump! Where are we anyway?"

"Good afternoon, Mrs Lestrange," he bowed with mocking politeness. She snarled, cast a thorough cleaning charm on a rickety chair and eased herself into it carefully, lip curling in distaste as she examined the room. "Welcome to my home and welcome to the North of England. The winters are colder, the people friendlier and unlike you Southern aristocratic types, we do not deem it necessary to pronounce the word 'bath' as though it rhymes with 'hearth'."

That broke her mood and she cackled out loud.

"Hogwash, Snape, you have the poshest accent I know. Your mother sent to for private speech lessons, didn't she? Didn't want you to end up talking like the Longbottoms! They have frightful Northern accents," she cackled again, enjoying the way her last comment made him grind his teeth.

"Frightful _Lancashire_ accents," he hissed the correction painfully - as a rule he liked to banish the very notion of the existence of Longbottoms during the summer holidays.

"Oh, Lancashire, Yorkshire, it's all the same isn't it? Hard to tell the difference from just the screams," she waved a hand dismissively.

He fought the urge to hex her. Then he fought the urge to treat her to an hour-long lecture on the hostility between the two neighbouring counties, from the fifteenth century Wars of the Roses to the present day, with at least twenty-five arguments concerning the perfidity of Lancastrians. Then he remembered the reason she was in Yorkshire in the first place.

"Here," he said, gathering up all three volumes of Potter's file and thrusting it at her. "The brat may have survived Avada Kedavra but he has hardly been the picture of health since then."

"Anaemia?" she read aloud from the earlier part of the records. "Didn't those stupid muggles bother feeding the little swine? Or did they loan him to the vampires?"

Snape indulged himself with a short flight of fancy centring on the latter idea. Then he shook his head and filed it away for next time Potter flew rings around the Slytherin quidditch team.

"Pleasant as it may be to discover the extent of his suffering, I see nothing which would account for the Dark Lord's current…situation," he secretly hoped she would give up on the idea and just leave the serpentine megalomaniac to his eccentricities.

"Damn," said Bella. She put the folder back onto the table, but slipped one page inside her robes. Snape raised a questioning eyebrow. "I want to find out how Lockhart removed his bones so neatly. Every time I try that curse they die before I can enjoy the effect."

"Fine," he tried not to shudder. "So where does that leave your theory about the Dark Lord's odd behaviour?" She scratched her prominent chin and ticked off the points of the resurrection spell on her fingers.

"The Servant – nothing was transmitted from Wormtail; the Enemy – Potter seems clean; that leaves the Bone of the Father," Bellatrix frowned. "Who was his father? Do you know?"

"Er," said Snape. He wasn't certain what the crazy witch would do to someone who told her the truth about her beloved master's parentage, but he had a fairly good idea that it would involve pain. Large amounts thereof.

"No, neither do I," she mused, taking his silence as a denial.

Snape brain began a little preliminary scheming. Tom Riddle Senior. This was going to be the hard part.

…….

A few hours later, Snape was lying flat on his face in Little Hangleton. Voldemort had not spoken since his arrival, which concerned him slightly. Not daring to look up, he shuffled forward as elegantly as is possible using only one's elbows, and tentatively kissed the hem of the Dark Lord's robes.

There was a muffled sniff from above him.

"Oh, Severus!" Voldemort exclaimed. "You're such a good servant to me!" Then he burst into tears.

Too alarmed for words, Snape desperately searched for the appropriate course of action when an evil overlord started crying. When his students cried, he gave them detention. When Sybill Trelawney cried, he left the room, or if possible, the country. When Narcissa cried, Lucius went to the pub. When Rodolphus cried, Bellatrix hexed him. Hmm. None of those options seemed appropriate somehow. Aha! He remembered happening upon the youngest Weasley boy and that bushy-haired know-it-all during one of their typically emotionally-incontinent moments. Much as he hated imitating any of those sickening redheads, he had to admit to their superior knowledge in the touchy-feely department.

He straightened up and patted the Dark Lord gently on the shoulder.

"There, there, Master," he whispered, as soothingly as he could. This had obviously been the wrong thing to do, because the sobbing grew even louder.

He took a step backwards but a spidery white hand shot out from the red velvet robe and dragged him forward towards the throne. Voldemort buried his face in Snape's chest and wept all over him.

Snape stood absolutely still, all his Slytherin's cunning, spy's resourcefulness and teacher's adaptability suddenly failing him. After five agonising minutes, the sobs transmuted into little sniffs and the Dark Lord's grip on Snape relaxed.

"They don't understand me, Severus," he blew his nose on Snape's flowing sleeve.

"Who don't, Master?" he ventured, too afraid to move.

"Everyone," Voldemort moaned. "Everyone hates me."

Snape remained silent. He wasn't foolish enough to contradict that. He adopted a pro-active approach instead.

"What can I do to help, my Lord?" he asked in a suitably crawling tone. The evil one pondered that for a minute.

"Kill Dumbledore," he demanded firmly. Both Snape's eyebrows shot upwards. As if he could ever manage to pull that off!

"Er, what about a more…attainable task?" Voldemort blew his nose again.

"Kill Potter?" he suggested hopefully. Snape shook his head firmly, wondering at how easy it was to deny the Dark Lord's wishes when he was in this state. _Do it yourself, you old lunatic,_ he thought, with a hint of déja vu. Here was a weakness which the Light side could make use of. He really must find out what was causing it, though.

Heaving a martyred sigh, Voldemort accepted the disobedience with good grace. The demands _had_ been rather unreasonable, he supposed.

"How about a nice cup of tea?" Snape was borrowing from a different Weasley this time. Voldemort looked up at him with puffy eyes and nodded gratefully. Snape continued; "With chocolate biscuits to dunk in it?" That one was from Lupin, the hyperglycaemic monster. Voldemort beamed.

"Yes. Lots of chocolate! Mmm, chocolate," he licked his lips as the potions master conjured a kettle and a suitably sinister-looking gothic-style teapot.

"Milk or dark chocolate, Master?" he asked without thinking.

Apparently, Voldemort was feeling a bit better.

"Stupid question, Snape!" he hissed, eyes glowing redder than usual. "Crucio!"

In between spasms of brain-crippling agony, Snape reflected that for once he did deserve that cursing for his dunderheadedness. Dark Lords only ever eat Dark Chocolate. Schoolboy error.

…….

A/N: I know, I know, still no ice-cream! Won't be long now though. Hopefully the biscuits will tide you over until then!

Next time, more Ollivander, and more Death Eater incompetence, heh heh.

PS Apologies for the hideously long delay in updating, haven't been feeling silly enough for this silly fic. Thanks for reading x


	5. Chapter 5

It was a warm summer night and the crescent moon did not hang in the black sky as eerily as it did on All Hallow's E'en. No chill mist rolled through the silent graveyard either, but the dark figure hunched over at the base of the tombstone shuddered regardless. His quickened breaths did not form icy clouds in the balmy air, nor did a solitary owl ever shatter the stillness with a sudden haunting cry.

Snape was glad of it, hating his current task enough as it was, without all the usual cemetery clichés to add to the drama of the moment.

He threw one last glance over his shoulder, confirming that he was unobserved, and used his wand to pull one of Tom Riddle Senior's dry ribs up out of the earth. He wrapped it carefully in a fraying handkerchief and stashed it in his pocket, straightening up in preparation to apparate away from the scene of the crime before the Dark Lord noticed that his Dad's DNA was being filched from under his very nose. Not that he had much of a nose these days, Snape reflected.

He started violently as the Dark Mark flared painfully on his arm and tried to bite down on his panic. It was highly unlikely that Voldemort had found out so soon that the grave had been robbed, though he really ought to have set up some kind of wards now that everyone knew how he had managed to regain his body. Snape frowned. Actually, that was not true. Only Wormtail and the Potter brat were _supposed_ to know exactly how he returned to corporeal power – the conceited little rodent had been unable to resist bragging to the other Death Eaters about his role that fateful night. _Fatal_ night, as far as the muscle-bound Hufflepuff had been concerned. Diggory had been about as effective in the lab as a chocolate cauldron. A pity all Quidditch-addled dunderheads could not be so neatly removed from his life. Slytherin might actually win the house cup for once. Snape laughed a nasty silent laugh into the night and hurried to Voldemort's side.

No one else was present. The Dark Lord was…well, lounging, was the only word to describe it, in the little drawing-room behind the grand hall. Nagini's head lay in his lap and he was petting her fondly with a spidery white hand.

"Ssseverus," he dived in without preamble. "I find myself in sssomething of a quandary."

The potions master decided that the reduced formality entitled him to kneel up, instead of completely prostrating himself. He readjusted the rib-bone in his pocket to stop it sticking out and causing comment.

"Permit me the honour of assisting you, my Lord," he grovelled.

"I summoned you, my slippery spy, because of your extensive knowledge of magical substances and their use within our world."

Snape felt a small thrill of delight. A potions commission! At last, someone had recognised his genius and decided to help him develop his considerable skills in a research project! How long he had waited for this moment! All those wasted years playing nursemaid to a castleful of whining ingrates would be a thing of the past as he would boldly go where no potions master had gone before!

"I await you command, Master," he bowed low.

"In your expert opinion, Sssnape, which is the most comforting foodstuff in the magical world?"

There was a stunned silence. Nagini twitched the end of her scaly tail and stared at him expectantly. Snape swallowed.

"Foodstuff, my Lord?" he echoed in dismay.

"Indeed."

"Comforting?"

"Quite so. Your hearing seems to be in excellent shape tonight." Of the Dark Lord's myriad moods, Snape like 'sarcastic' the least of all. Except perhaps the time he'd had toothache and had spread his misery around the wizarding and muggle worlds, zapping randomly at his followers in between attacks. Green Thursday, the Prophet had called it, after all the Dark Marks which had littered the sky. Lucius grumbled about it as the woeful day when his brand-new Italian custom-made dragonsuede boots had been ruined forever by too much agonised rolling in the mud. There had been, he claimed later, a three-year waiting list to receive a pair.

Severus did not understand fashion, nor had he any wish to. He had scraped the filth off his ancient – but perfectly functional – black leather boots without a word.

"My Lord inferred that the biscuits, which I had the honour to provide the other day, were palatable," hazarded the potions master.

Snape's expertise did not stretch far in the culinary arena, either. At Hogwarts, food appeared at set times during the day. If he was too preoccupied to make it to the dining room for more than three meals in a row, he would become dizzy, at which point he would call an elf and request sustenance. The form which the sustenance took was of little concern to him, unless it was corned beef hash, in which case he vanished it when no one was looking. He had deliberated getting promotion within the Inner Circle by acquiring the recipe for corned beef hash and offering it to the Dark Lord as a new form of torture for captives, but his conscience had pricked him at the last minute. Not even Snape could be so cruel.

"Biscuits are all very well," the Dark Lord informed him airily, "Especially when accompanied by a nice cup of tea. But they are not sufficient for my purposes this evening. I require something altogether more…indulgent."

"Something delicious, Master?" he hazarded carefully.

"Yesss! Delicious and sweet and wicked!" Voldemort gazed into the middle distance, rubbing his hands together and making an effort not to drool over his serpentine familiar, who was looking at him oddly.

Snape bowed and assured him that he would do his best.

Back at Spinner's End he pulled out the Riddle bone and placed it on the table. So much for getting his much-needed rest and relaxation over the holidays.

Taking the precaution of locking Wormtail in the downstairs toilet, Severus subjected the bone to every rigorous test for every blood-borne disease he could think of, plus the ones which Bellatrix had discovered when they tested Pettigrew. He was still rather hazy on what exactly he was looking for – some abnormality, he supposed, which could explain the odd way the Dark Lord had been behaving since the resurrection. Something hormonal, maybe. He sighed as the last, obscure ancient Mayan spell yielded nothing worth knowing and nurtured the unlikely hope that the crazy witch would give up her crazy quest and leave him alone.

Tidying away his equipment, he dropped his best number six bronze cauldron on the floor with a clang when an orange ball of flame appeared from nowhere at his elbow.

"Merlin, Fawkes!" he shrieked, raising a threatening finger. "Are you trying to kill me?" The phoenix was not listening. He bounded up and down in the air, warbling urgently in a minor key. "What?" asked Snape, irritated. "Did the old man send you?"

Fawkes, evidently not in the mood for playing charades, tossed his pretty head irritably, seized hold of the potions master with his claws and yanked him through space with a crackly whoosh, which was more disorienting than floo powder and more nauseating than apparition.

His feet touched familiar soft carpet before his head stopped spinning.

"The Headmaster's office?" he snapped at the firebird. "Well, where is…"

He voice sank by about three octaves before tailing off completely. The carpet, desk, chairs, portraits, phoenix perch, gadgets and dish of lemon drops were all in their proper places. The sight which had just simultaneously stolen his speech and stabbed a six-foot icicle through his stomach was the groaning heap of lilac robes twitching on the floor.

"Oh no," murmured Snape.

Dumbledore was only semi-conscious, but recognised him just fine.

"Ah, dearest boy," he whispered weakly. "It exploded, you know."

"What exploded?" demanded Snape, already scanning the Headmaster for injuries and grimacing at the sensation of malevolent dark magic pouring off his right-hand side.

"Went with an al…almighty bang, dear me," his eyes were glazed over in a way that Snape did not like one bit. "Knew you could help me. So clever, Severus. Yes."

"Albus! Stay with me! What happened?" he threw himself down next to the old man and tugged off his garish outer robe. He exhaled with a hiss. Dumbledore's right hand was completely black and burned, a foul-smelling vapour swirling around it and slowly but visibly creeping up his forearm. The old blue eyes fluttered closed. "Albus! Don't you dare! Wake up! What exactly did you do? I need to know so I can help you."

It seemed that Dumbledore had taken himself off somewhere and been blown up in the act of destroying something powerful which was protected by a spell of exceptionally dark and evil proportions. Summoning book after book from the restricted section of the library, Snape finally succeeded in identifying the slow-burning curse known as Creeping Smoulder, but not before the damage had worked its way up past the headmaster's elbow. After another two inches, he found the ancient voodoo curse capable of halting its progress.

"I knew you would not let me down, my boy," said Dumbledore with unnatural cheerfulness as Snape tucked him into bed and tipped a strengthening solution down his throat. Snape stared.

"Let you down? Albus, are you mad? Nothing can be done with your arm. You have just lost the use of your wand hand completely!"

"I have another arm, Severus. I shall look forward to learning how to use my left," he beamed again. Snape's stomach gave a sudden lurch. Dumbledore had nearly died. The rock of ages and the only living person known to make the Dark Lord quake in his dark boots had almost been swept away – _then_ what would have happened? The Light forces would have been dashing around like headless chickens trying to find a suitable replacement. Things were bad enough as it stood, with the old man visibly weakened and showing human frailty. There would be some serious partying in Little Hangleton when this story broke. He sighed heavily.

Any principles he may have had years ago about the advantages of good or evil had long been set aside in his interminable quest for a quiet life. The fervent aspirations of the disaffected young Snape watered themselves down into a vague hope of living long enough to become a cantankerous old man, instead of the cantankerous youth he had once been, or the cantankerous middle-aged man he was now. If he was leaning to the Light side rather than the Dark of late, it was mostly because, though both Dumbledore and Voldemort both went out of their way to irritate him, Albus' preferred medium of torture was the pre-breakfast staff meeting instead of the more direct Cruciatus curse. Fortunately, he had not been forced to pick sides during the interminable year of Gilderoy Lockhart's tenure as DADA professor. The sight of that cosmetically-enhanced lackwit first thing in the morning may well have sent him skipping to the Riddle Mansion clutching a basket of home-made fairy cakes with 'I (heart) my Dark Master' iced on the top.

"You know, dear boy," Dumbledore mused weakly, looking peaky against his animated Quidditch bedspread, "You're not half bad at Defence Against the Dark Arts, are you?"

Snape indulged himself by smacking his head against the carved oak bedpost, very quietly, just the once.

"No I am not 'half bad'," he ground through clenched teeth. "I am _excellent_!"

A tiny embroidered snitch whizzed past Albus' left ear as he turned to look at his colleague.

"So you are. I say, how about teaching Defence, instead of Potions, dear boy?"

Snape seized hold of his jaw and hoisted it back into position. He wanted to scream at the infuriating old bugger that he had consistently asked for the post for the last fourteen years, that he was so much better qualified than the ponces, neurotics, werewolves, frauds and raving lunatics who had inhabited that particular office over the years, that he would achieve much greater fulfilment and therefore be less inclined towards peevishness, were he permitted to engage in a job he actually enjoyed. His fingers also seemed to be itching to wrap themselves around that wrinkly throat. With a tremendous effort of will, he kept his accusations and lust for violence to himself. Instead, he just said:

"Yes."

"Splendid, splendid," beamed Albus. "You can start in September. Now, if I may trespass upon your time for one last favour, Severus?"

…….

It was ten minutes to seven in the morning and Diagon Alley was deserted, which was how Snape liked it. At this time of day, one could safely walk around without fear of being barged by elbows, prodded with shopping bags or accidentally stepping on small children. Not that Snape objected to breaking the odd tiny toe himself, but he found that doughty mothers had ways of expressing their consternation which could make one's hair curl.

He strode briskly past Ollivander's shop, boarded up and looking desolate since Voldemort had 'requested his assistance'. Fortunately, all attempts to trace him had proved futile, though the investigators who had looked over the mess (created by Crabbe, Goyle and Kevin the monkey that night) had concluded that the old wand-maker must have put up one hell of a struggle against his kidnappers.

Presently he arrived at Florean Fortesque's Ice Cream Parlour which was, predictably, in darkness, as even the most indulgent of parents balked at spoiling their overfed sprogs so early in the morning. Snape knocked for five minutes before a window above the shop creaked up and a loaded crossbow peeped out.

"Who's there?" demanded a groggy voice.

"I need ice-cream," Snape address the weapon, in lieu of any apparent human presence.

"We're closed! Come back in two hours," the voice sounded somewhat exasperated, and as the crossbow withdrew, Snape swore he heard a whisper of, 'time of the month, is it?'

"It is not for myself," the new DADA teacher supplied impatiently. He consulted the scrap of paper he had written on at Albus' dictation. "I require a Super-size Lush Lemon Tang-fastic Oomph Ultra-Juicy Citrus Sundae with lemon wafers, warm zingyfudge sauce, sherbet nuggets, sugar sprinkles, whipped cream, three mini everlasting-sparklers, a plastic monkey and a pink cocktail umbrella!"

The window flew up and a large curly head leaned right out above the street.

"Oh, Merlin! What's wrong with Albus!" demanded Fortescue, the picture of panic. "Hold on, I'm coming down!"

It transpired that each of Fortescue's regulars had a favourite dessert, which he prided himself on learning by heart. This particular concoction was Dumbledore's school-holiday treat, but he only requested sherbet nuggets _and_ sugar sprinkles as a special pick-me-up when something really terrible happened.

Refusing to be drawn into the nature of the problem, Snape took a seat in the parlour to wait while the artist plied his craft.

"What's your favourite flavour?" he threw a speculative glance at the dark man and Snape watched his eyes flick to the tub of blood sorbet over on the 'special' counter. Snape scowled.

"Newt and anchovy," he sneered. Florean nodded with mild relief and provided him with a scoop of flecked green gloop in a little silver dish, presumably to entertain his visitor while he was carefully assembling the lemon monstrosity for Albus.

Snape looked around the shadowy café. Even in the early-morning light it was remarkably different from Ollivander's dusty rows of shelves. There, thousands of centuries-old wands idled in the dank rooms inside their crumbling boxes, waiting for the little wizard of their dreams to shuffle nervously though the door. The proprietor, looking as though he had manned the place personally since 382BC, would lurk in the shadows, full of premonition and sinister warnings as his merchandise rustled impatiently behind him, waiting for the destructive business of Choosing to begin. Some of the more sensitive eleven year olds were known to burst into tears on crossing the threshold.

Here, the tables and chairs were decorated with shifting patterns of rainbows. Florean, a huge man with a flowing mane of brown pre-Raphaelite curls and a laugh which could shake a four-storey building would jig gently in his frilly apron, full of jokes and humorous songs for his young customers. On every wall, a bright mural of big-eyed puffskeins and stylised unicorns cavorted merrily in an improbably-coloured landscape, playing leapfrog and licking ice cream cones larger than their own bodies.

"Hi, I'm Tiddly," beamed one particularly garish character in a vivid orange suit not unlike Dumbledore's bathing outfit, "Can I be your fwiend?"

On the whole, Snape preferred the wand shop.

"Nearly finished, Professor," chimed Florean, tugging the lid off a glittering bucket labelled 'Sherbet Nuggets'. "This will be a great comfort to Albus, whatever the problem is!"

"Comfort?" repeated Snape, thinking of his little chat with the Dark Lord.

"Surely, surely!" boomed Fortescue. "Most of my grown-up customers eat sundaes in order to make themselves feel better! There you go."

He handed the teacher an enormous structure of many alarming different shades of yellow, with the requested series of tasteless accessories sticking out of the top. Snape cast an eye-shielding charm on himself in order to survive the journey. Fortescue refused his offers of payment, instead reaching under the counter and handing him a pink cardboard hat with bells and pom-poms hanging off it. He raised an eyebrow with a hint of menace.

"Free hat for every boy or girl ordering a sundae with more than three toppings!" explained Florean. Snape looked at the hat and scowled.

"Albus will love it," he sighed. Then, remembering his other master, picked up a take-away menu and tucked it in a pocket. "You do sell _dark_ chocolate ice cream?" he queried, keen not to repeat his earlier errors.

"Twenty-one different types!" he assured him.

"Perfect," smirked Snape. Sometimes, being a spy was easy. It was just a matter of multi-tasking.

…….

No Bellatrix this time, but she will be back! Yes, Wormtail is still locked in the toilet. Yes, there was some gratuitous Diggory-bashing – I think poor Cedric was the kind of outdoor-loving, sporty, popular, handsome type of goody-goody Snape would despise.

I know this fic is very silly and rarely makes a lot of sense, but thank you for reading it anyway! Sherbet nuggets for everyone! Yay!


	6. Chapter 6

Snape awoke at about four in the afternoon, groggy and even more irritable than usual.

He hated sleeping during the day. For some reason, it made his subconscious mind regress to childhood, and his temper was never improved by dreams of hiding behind the sofa in Spinner's End every time the Daleks appeared on the TV; or of doing up only the top toggle of his school duffle coat, not using the sleeves and charging around pretending to be Batman. Stanley Wiggins from number 34 had made a terrible Robin. Stan's reluctance to be tied up then rescued every evening was really rather tiresome to the aspiring little superhero Severus, forcing him to make his improvised bat-cape billow behind him as a means of intimidation.

He threw off the blankets and stalked to the bathroom, muttering darkly about having spent the first eleven years of his life as a slave to the black and white box in the corner of the room. Muggles used the damned things to avoid contact with their children by mesmerising the little brutes into silence, though it must have been different in the past, he mused. The Dark Lord's time in the orphanage would have pre-dated the advent of affordable televisual equipment, if his calculations were correct. He must have grown up without the joys of The Avengers or the caped crusader, instead…doing what? Trying to survive the Second Muggle World War? Had little Tom Riddle carried a government-issue gas mask in a cardboard box? Been fed on rations of dried egg and tinned spam? Had he played Spitfires and Messerschmidts in the dormitories? Been evacuated in order to escape interminable air-raids and lead a completely alien existence surrounded by strangers in the countryside, like Toby Snape?

He turned the shower up far too hot to distract him from thoughts of his father. The scary Daleks, with their robotic voices and fearsome low-budget weaponry were preferable, every time.

Flooing straight to the Headmaster's study to check on Dumbledore, Snape was disconcerted to find Fawkes cowering in a corner, as various erratic bangs and crackles sounded from the adjacent bedroom.

"What's going on?" he asked the phoenix. Fawkes stared balefully at him and ducked underneath his cloak for protection. "Don't you dare scorch my new summer robes," he threatened.

Stepping cautiously through the communicating door, he called out.

"Albus? Is everything all right?"

"Ooh, Severus, do come in!" chirped a cheery voice, with an odd stereo effect to it. Snape peered in and beheld a scene of devastation.

Feathers from a ruined duvet floated through the air, a three-legged blue albatross with pointy ears glared at him from the windowsill, the curtains appeared to have been inexpertly transfigured into tarpaulin, and the pungent odour of fire and brimstone pervaded the air. There was also a six foot long bloom of a scorch mark reaching from floor to ceiling on the west-facing wall.

"Good afternoon, dear boy!" beamed Dumbledore, from the bed. And also from the top shelf of the bookcase. Snape's sharp eyes flicked from one Headmaster to the other in disbelief. Two of them! It was the stuff of nightmares.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" he demanded, fear quite justifiably overriding respect for the moment.

"I was just practising a little spellcasting with my left hand," the Albus on the bed flicked his wrist and a nearby vase exploded. "Whoops!"

Startled by the bang, Fawkes stuck his head out from his Snapish hiding place and began shrilly scolding at everyone, for once not sounding the least bit musical or mythical. In fact, though Severus was no phoenixmouth, he suspected that he was hearing a fine selection of the more vulgar pyro-avian expressions.

"Oh dear," sighed the bookcase-Albus. "Do be careful, Albus!"

"Don't worry, Albus, I'm getting the hang of it now!" replied the bed-Albus.

"Sticky toffee pudding," said the Albatross.

"I am going to go now," said Snape evenly, backing away slowly after an amazing feat of self-control stopped him from howling and/or weeping at the horrifying scenes inside the tower. The screams of the tortured souls in Voldemort's sinister lair were infinitely preferable to such alarming displays of chaos. "I believe Minerva is far more qualified to assist you…both…in your current predicament."

"Ah, not really, Severus," the bed-Albus looked rather shifty.

"We had a little accident with dear Minerva," explained the bookcase-Albus. He pointed to the mutated tripod albatross, which fixed him with a beady yellow eye.

"Sticky toffee pudding," it repeated, with some irritation.

Snape gaped.

Then sniggered.

"No," he looked from Dumbledore to Dumbledore, convinced it was some kind of practical joke. "That cannot really be…"

"Alas! It is indeed Minerva!" exclaimed the bookcase-Albus woefully.

"I merely attempted a calming charm when she noticed my damaged arm and began to panic," bed-Albus supplied.

"Sadly, he's not yet as accurate with his left hand as he was with his right," said the other.

"Each time I try to put her back to normal it gets worse," he didn't sound as penitent as he ought. "Watch this! Finite Incantatem!"

Dumbledore flicked his left hand again and the McGonagall albatross sprouted a fourth leg.

"Sticky toffee pudding," she wailed plaintively.

Snape waited a few seconds in order to let the image imprint itself forever into his memory, then returned the Head of Gryffindor to her natural form.

Once the shrieking had died down, he managed to banish the duplicate Dumbledore and set the room back to rights, though at the Headmaster's special request he left the tarpaulin curtains as they were – to "add a certain _je ne sais quoi"_ to the atmosphere. Minerva huffed off to her rooms for a wee lie down, leaving Master and Spy alone. A careful inspection of the damaged arm revealed that the Creeping Smoulder had not advanced since he last saw it, but the blackened area remained unresponsive to stimuli.

"How much of this would you like to tell Voldemort, Severus?" The question was quiet and so unexpected that Snape flinched at the name more visibly than he had in years.

"You believe I should tell him about your injury?" he asked incredulously.

"Certainly, my boy," the blue eyes were suddenly sharp as splinters of flint. "He will be delighted with the news and also with the wizard who delivers it. I don't think we can waste such a great opportunity to boost your popularity - it is merely a question of how much information to pass on."

"As little as possible," Snape said stiffly. "If he discovers that you have been weakened he may decide on sudden and dangerous courses of action."

"Weakened?" queried the Headmaster.

Dumbledore picked up his wand in his good hand and flicked it, sending Snape diving for cover underneath the solid oak bedframe. When no explosions were forthcoming, he risked a peek and saw that the old man had conjured a perfect copy of the Mona Lisa, complete with her frame and the Louvre's specially designed bullet-proof glass casing, and was hovering it at eye-level for critical inspection.

"A very impressive facsimile, Albus," he admitted. "Perhaps your powers are not much weaker after all."

"Facsimile?" he frowned, a glint of mischief on his wrinkled face. "I doubt that any copy could ever match the glory of the original."

"Albus!" yelled Snape, leaping to his feet. "Put that back AT ONCE! The muggles will have a fit!"

Looking completely unrepentant, Albus sent the painting back to Paris with the merest twitch of his wand.

…….

The Riddle House was not as quiet as he had hoped when he arrived to deliver the awesome news. He fingered the Fortescue Ice-cream menu, still nestling with saccharine malevolence in his pocket, hoping to use it as a talisman against any unpredictable mood-swing the Dark Lord might experience. The garish yellow concoction he had delivered to Dumbledore earlier that day had certainly perked him up. Snape had high hopes for Florean's skill with a cocoa bean having a soothing effect on the evil one's torment.

In the entrance hall, a number of Death Eaters were gathered in a circle, laughing boisterously as they watched some kind of spectacle taking place on the stairs. Dreading a glimpse of their downright horrible tastes in entertainment, he tried to blend into the shadows and pass without being noticed, but Bellatrix spotted him before he had managed five yards.

"Oh ho, slippery Snape! Come and see what you missed!" she shrieked. All the others turned to look at him, some with dangerous expressions, some merely curious.

"What are you talking about?" he sneered, cowing the younger Death Eaters with some judicious glaring.

"The fight, of course!" she trilled. "You were so busy being a good boy for darling Dumbly-Wumbly that you missed all the fun!"

Someone in the crowd began muttering about the 'fun' of being beaten in duels by a load of kids, then watching your mates get arrested while you had to flee like a weasel, but a hex from Bella silenced him.

"Watch this, Sevvie!" She commanded. "You'll like it, I promise!"

Snape noticed for the first time that two high-backed chairs had been placed about a yard apart at the foot of the staircase, and a dusty old sheet was draped between them, a ventilation charm leaving it blowing slightly in the breeze. Rodolphus Lestrange did something to his hair which made it slightly shaggy and grinned with unnatural roguishness at the audience before throwing a set of showy but harmless hexes at his wife, who returned them with a high-pitched cackle.

Not daring to breathe, the potions master stared with fascination as the scene played out before him, recognising immediately that the Lestranges were re-enacting the last moments of his late nemesis.

With exaggerated swagger and bravado, Rodolphus blocked a dummy curse and laughed aloud.

"Come on, you can do better than that!" he taunted.

The light hit him square in the chest and the Death Eaters cheered as the gloating expression melted from his face, replaced by one of startled disbelief. Bella laughed nastily and with some clever levitation, flung him backwards down the stairs and through the curtain.

Snape joined in the rapturous applause.

"Told you that you'd like it," she leaned over the banister and grinned at him.

"Is that really what happened?" Snape asked, breathless with a mixture of awe at the simplicity of it and envy that he had missed out on the real event.

"Yep," she smiled, watching her husband struggling to get up while entangled in drapery and falling over. "Wham! Straight through the veil. It was bloody fantastic! You really should try killing someone down in the Department of Mysteries - they just vanish, body and soul at the same time!"

They sighed contentedly, lost for a time in pleasant thoughts of murder and destruction, until the unhinged witch quietly reminded him that they were still no nearer solving the riddle of Voldemort's recent bizarre behaviour. Knowing she would not want their suspicions aired in front of the others, he merely nodded and staged a quick exit.

Snape made his way upstairs to the reception chamber where the Dark Lord was hatching his wicked plots. Any irritation at being disturbed mid-scheme by one of his minions evaporated the instant said minion delivered the compelling news.

He whooped.

He cheered.

He punched the air.

He did a funny dance which involved holding one of his ankles and waggling his bent knee in the air.

He calmed down again.

"Ssseverus, you may also exsspress your delight," Voldemort straightened his robes and regained his composure.

"Hurrah, my Lord," said Snape, flatly.

"Well done, my ssstoic ssservant for bringing me this news ssso ssswiftly," the Dark Lord rubbed his thin fingers together. "Finally victory is in sssight!"

Safely hidden in his subservient pose, the spy allowed himself a grimace of apprehension at the thought of this madman and his freakish followers destroying life as he knew it. Snape did not consider that life, as he knew it, was particularly sweet or overflowing with rosebuds, but the kind of coup that the Dark Lord had in mind would make his daily trials at school look like a dream. Not a real dream, of course - they tended to be filled with flashbacks of werewolf claws, abuse at the hands of Potters or the pleading faces of long-dead muggle victims - more like the amazing visions of wonder one attained after consuming the wrong kind of mushroom.

Presently, he found himself sweeping through the corridors of the old house, a respectful distance behind his Master. It was strangely reminiscent of patrolling Hogwarts, noticing the way the odd stray Death Eaters cringed away and pressed themselves against the walls to avoid them. Merlin, if the curfew-breaking brats thought Snape was fearsome, they really should see Voldemort now! Robes flowing, lips sneering, eyes flashing dangerously as he threatened to do far worse things than deduct a few house points from those who displeased him. This was better. This was _Power._

Forgetting his earlier thoughts about the shambles of a society which would exist should the Dark forces ever win the war, Snape enjoyed a little fantasy centring on being able to wield such strict control and keep the little dunderheads in line with some real discipline. He stopped smiling to himself when he realised how much he sounded like Filch

Their progress ended at the door to the cellar, where the Dark Lord performed a complex sequence of unlocking spells and finally brought out a huge metal key with a wrought-iron skull as its head and turned it in the creaking lock.

"Ssskeleton key," he joked as the bolts sprang back with a clang. Snape managed to turn his groan into a cough before he received any serious curses.

As far as prisons went, the room was not too bad. Ollivander was sitting in a comfortable-looking armchair, completing an odd sort of puzzle book consisting of pages and pages of square grids, filled inexplicably with different patterns of numbers from 1 to 9. His familiar, Kevin the little spider-monkey, was perched on the back of his chair, scratching himself in a place not quite appropriate for scratching in polite company.

"How are you, Mr Ollivander?" asked Voldemort pleasantly. "Do you have everything you require?"

"Aside from my liberty, Mr Riddle?" he retorted tartly.

Voldemort ignored him and began interrogating the old man on the task he had been set, wondering when his excellent brain was going to come up with a solution to the little problem of his and Potter's wands not being able to duel effectively. How, he demanded, was he to vanquish the brat without getting the whole laser show like last time?

Ollivander shrugged.

"You could just throttle him," he suggested.

"No!" shouted Voldemort, going from rational to psychotic in the space of half a second. "We are wizards! I will not stoop to crude muggle methods of killing! The subtlety and style of magic is what separates us from them, and their, filthy, ape-like, primitive, filthy, inefficient, filthy dirty ways!" His red eyes were bulging out of their sockets and a throbbing vein had appeared on each temple. Snape had taken an involuntary step back even before he had yelled the first 'filthy'.

"I understand your rationale," the wand maker calmly added a six in the middle of one of his puzzles, then looked up at the monkey. "Kevin, do stop playing with yourself in public. But I believe I already told you that the special effects you witnessed will occur each and every time two brother wands meet in hostile circumstances."

"But…!" began the Dark Lord.

"And in answer to your next question," Ollivander interrupted. "A wizard's first wand is his best match. Subsequent instruments will always form a slightly inferior bond, so I can provide you with a new one, but you may lose a little of your power or focus. Will that be all?"

The Dark Lord's lower lip began to wobble. Striding out of the cell with as much dignity as he could muster, he collapsed against the wall of the corridor once they were out of earshot.

"Whyyyyyyy, Severus?" he sobbed. "Why am I thwarted at every turn?"

Patting his master's bony shoulder comfortingly, Snape was confronted with yet another difficult decision. He had a potential solution to this problem, but telling him might tip the balance and give the Death Eaters the ability to win.

Voldemort should not risk losing his edge by replacing his own wand. He should destroy Potter's. Fighting with a second-choice wand, without the supernatural ability to cancel out the curses of the enemy, Potter would stand no chance, especially if Dumbledore's injury made him less effective as supreme protector.

It was perfect. Too perfect, unfortunately. Searching deep inside himself, Snape just could not do it. Voldemort or one of the others would reach the same conclusion eventually, or perhaps force Ollivander to do so, but by then the spy would have had chance to discuss it with Dumbledore. He grimaced. Being an unsung genius could be _so_ tiresome

The lesser problem of how to stop the Dark Lord crying like a baby was much more easily dealt with. He pulled the Fortescue's menu from his pocket and waved it in front of the teary villain.

"Master, look what I have discovered!" he bowed very low. Voldemort sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

"What is it?" he hiccoughed.

"Comfort food, my Lord!" Snape opened out the folded card and pointed to some sumptuous illustrations. "Observe! Quadruply Gooey Cocoa Deluxe! Whipple Scrumptious Fudge Mallow Delight! Gloopy Loopy Squelchy Browniefied Dark Chocolate Nut Extravaganza!"

Voldemort snatched the leaflet and straightened up.

"Ice cream?" he asked. "This is the result of your research into the most delicious substances on earth?"

"Yes, my Lord," Snape vowed never to let him know exactly where he had got the idea. "Though no research is ever completely exhaustive. I was recently given a tip concerning creamed spinach, and another suggestion of burgers, Master."

"Spinach?" the Dark Lord spat viciously. "Don't even mention that poison in my presence! They used to force-feed it to us every day at the orph…ahem…the awful mudblood-infested hellhole they call Hogwarts!"

Snape knew better than to give any indication of having spotted the slip.

"Yes, my Lord," he humbly lowered his eyes. "And the burgers?"

The penetrating eyes, redder than usual thanks to the recent crying fit, narrowed dangerously as he advanced on Severus, looming so close that both their noses touched.

"Have you been mixing with _Americans_, Ssseverus?" he whispered, accusingly.

"No, Master!" This was another of the Dark Lord's prejudices which Snape did not share. He didn't mind Americans. Batman had been an American, after all.

"Are you absssolutely certain?"

"Yes, Master. There are not many of them in rural Scotland."

"Fine," Voldemort conceded the point and returned his attention to the menu, running his finger down the page as he analysed the composition of each wickedly wonderful treat. "Hmm. Aha! That looks more like it! A missssion, my loyal Ssseverus!"

Snape hit the floor and kissed the hem of his robes.

"Anything, Master. Your wish is my command!" he crawled, knowing perfectly well which sundae he was going to choose. It was rather sad that the old megalomaniac was so predictable.

"Fetch me," he paused for dramatic effect, letting a little wandless magic make his robes billow and his eyes spark. "Death by Chocolate!"

Once he was clear of the house, he rolled his eyes until they started to ache. There was no denying it anymore. For the first time in his life, Snape really, really couldn't wait until the first of September.

…….

AN: If you don't know what a Dalek is, try Google images. They look like a cross between a tin can and a motorised wheelchair, but most Brits under the age of fifty will have memories of being absolutely terrified by them as children.

Yes, I've borrowed a phrase from Roald Dahl again, for he is the greatest! I've also borrowed some comfort foods from my reviewers…


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